A Mostly Merry Christmas Response to Franklin´s Pick Of The Month

¡Feliz navidad desde Uruguay! I am a few days late in writing this, but it´s been crazy around here since last Friday: we´ve had all kinds of guests (from two continents), church asados, stomach illness (not connected to the formerly mentioned ítems), and (imagine this) work. This week, accordingly, you´re getting a Tango Thursday, rather than a Mate Monday, update. Also, this will be part two of my Christmas meditations inspired by the one, the only, Franklin Ishida. This week, I´m tackling the question of the meaning of Christmas in the context of my life and mission here in Uruguay.

I´ve been reading, when I have the patience and energy, Jürgen Moltmann´s The Crucified God. As the title suggests, it is a work devoted to the “theology of the cross,” that often-mentioned, but sometimes misunderstood, branch of Christian theology rooted, to at least a large extent, in the writings of Martin Luther (he originated the phrase). So what is this theology of the cross, then, and what does it have to do with Christmas in Uruguay? Cruciform theology, theology that puts the crucified Christ and, by de facto, the crucified God, at its center demands that we think about that cross and why God found it so important to forever link it, and the shame and suffering it implies, with God´s own identity in our world. It is the recognition that God´s presence is not principally up in heaven, sitting on a fancy gold throne; it is here with us, all of us, and especially in the midst of suffering. God chose to suffer so that we can enter into relationship with God, to bring us into the Kingdom of God. This is meant in more than just the idea of personal salvation; it´s so much deeper than that. It is the call to take up that cross, not to flee from the suffering of the world, but instead to take seriously the burden of stewardship of a world filled with pain, anguish, and misery.

So, what does that have to do with Christmas? Well, that journey to the cross had to start somewhere, and that somewhere was on a night over 2000 years ago in a town that nobody cared about called Bethlehem…Belén to the Spanish-speakers in the audience. Bethlehem was, to talk like a Montevideano, kinda like El Cerro – it was more-or-less just a district of Jerusalem, but one with a very separate identity, a corner of the region with nothing to recommend itself to the rest of the world. In fact, maybe that makes someplace like Uruguay a Bethlehem in the world – you know, that place you memorized the location of once for a geography test, and then forgot about it. You´ll probably never intentionally plan a trip to go there, and even if you do, you´ll probably only hop over to Colonia for a day, or just go straight to the beach in Punta del Este, or stay for a few days to catch both, plus a day or two in Montevideo. It´s not glamorous, it´s not fancy, it´s not the place that conjures up all sorts of exciting images in your mind. It´s just Uruguay, that little buffer state between Argentina and Brazil.

It´s the people, too. Bethlehem, being the forgotten corner of Judea, was not marked by prosperity, or even much hope of prosperity. Its people just tried to get by – keep food on the table, clothes on their backs, a roof over their head. They were a lot like most of the Uruguayans I know – not necessarily poor, but just getting by. The Uruguayan economy is stable, but it´s not strong or likely to become one of those “tiger” economies that pop out of the woodwork every decade or so and surprise everyone until something bad happens – it was Southeast Asia in the ´90s, Ireland right now, but it just won´t ever be Uruguay. There aren´t the natural resources, business infrastucture, the population, or the international interest; Uruguay will likely stay the same, a comfortable, but not First World, sort of place. As for attitudes, they run the gamut from the few wealthy plutocrats, enjoying the easy life in Pocitos and Punta del Este, to fiery-eyed leftists leaving fervent Marxist graffitti on every wall in the city, to the 90% in between, most of whom seem tired, weary, and resigned to the gray skies of living on the razor-edge between comfortable stability and the threat of economic collapse. There´s always the imperialism card to play, too – Israel was under the heel of the Romans; take your pick as to who or what is most worthy of the title of “global imperialists” right now, but chances are high that they´ve got Uruguay where they want it.

And yet into this, into the ignored, depressed, incontent corners of the world, Christ is born. When it´s dark and things aren´t easy or fun, Christ is born. Where there too often isn´t hope, isn´t faith (Uruguay is up there with Europe for letting cold, atheistic rationalism hold the day), and maybe even isn´t love, Christ is born. Where people feast in their beachside high-rises while people on the other side of the city are going hungry, where the rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods don´t even feel like the same planet, Christ is born. Wherever people suffer, are prisoners to sin, oppression, and darkness, Christ is born. Christmas didn´t just happen once; the crucified Christ, resurrected and alive, still comes to us in our fears, in our secret longings for abetter way, and brings us, in the words of Marty Haugin´s “Healer of Our Every Ill,” peace beyond our fears and hope beyond our sorrows.

La Navidad, part 1

So, this will be the first of two reflections over Christmas; this is not my Franklin´s Choice of the month; next week´s entry will deal more explicity with the themes he´s asked us to consider. This week, I´ve been thinking a lot of about what it means to have Christmas in the summer.

It´s strange to think, simultaneously, that it is both Christmastime and beach season here in Uruguay. Admittedly, today with rain and temperatures back below 20 C, it doesn´t feel much like beach season, but nonetheless, this is probably the last good, strong cool spell before summer begins in earnest. The amazing thing is that, despite the season, Santa still wears a heavy fur suit, snowflakes are still used for decorations in some places, and the evergreen imagery so much a part of my theology of Christmas (new life in the middle of the dead winter) is still present, even though every other tree, plant, and flower here is blooming as well.

Walking somewhere this week with Wilma (I forget where exactly), I pointed out how many people there are on the streets these days selling jasmine blossoms. She smiled and told me that, in her opinion, the jasmine is the REAL Christmas tree of Uruguay - it blooms in late November and through December, and the city is filled with the scent of fresh-cut jasmine blossoms. The jacarandas, in my opinion, get the silver medal for Uruguayan Christmas Tree; its hard to walk far in Montevideo without seeing at least one or two jacarandas in full purple glory.

It´s also beach time; last night, La Rambla was filled with people drinking mate, playing drums, hanging out in Parque Rodó, and in general enjoying the not-quite-warm-but-not-yet-cool evening temps. The sound of murgas, not carolers, are in the air - singing, drumming, dancing, and joking around with bitingly sharp lyrics. Candombes, groups of African-style drummers and dancers, aren´t hard to find, either, and even the parodistas - street comedy groups, often vulgar but always funny, are starting to crop up.

In some ways, I miss the "in the bleak mid-winter" Christmas I´ve always known, Christmas marked by the joyful, but cold and broken, celebration of the Savior´s arrival in our world. The flipside is that, when you do Christmas in the summer, the brilliant light of the Daystar really DOES inspire a lot of joy and hopefulness. Here´s to new takes on old holidays.

¡Vamos a matear!

And yes, in response to those of you who remember jokes from the last post, we DO have yerba on hand today...none of THAT in this blog!

Anyhow, today´s update is devoted to this blog´s namesake, my new daily habit, and the very Uruguayan thing I will be subjecting a good number of people reading this to once I get back. That´s right, it´s MATE TIME. Yerba mate is a caffeinated tea-like plant grown in Paraguay, parts of Brazil, and northwestern Argentina, and people have been drinking it for thousands of years - right on back to the Guaraní. The Spanish colonists took to the drink, despite efforts by the Crown and the Catholic Church to outlaw it, and Argentines, Paraguayans, southern Brazilians, some Chileans, and especially Uruguayans have been drinking it ever since.

Mate isn´t like coffee or tea in that you just casually brew your own cup of it; if you want that, you have to buy bags of mate cocido, which is a tea made from mate. The real deal is best drunk with friends and family, all sharing the same cup (the mate). The person serving fills their mate (usually made from a gourd and often covered in leather) up with yerba (the loose crushed leaves from the plant) and adds a little room temperature water to prime the yerba (at least in Uruguay it´s like this...given the Uruguayan mate mania, I´m assuming this is the best way to do it). Then, the bombilla, a straw typically made from metal (they range from cheap bronze ones to fancier silver affairs to museum-quality gold ones encrusted with jewels) is put in, and hot (but not boiling) water is poured in, with care taken not to pour water over all the the yerba...just a part of it. The server then takes their turn, trying the mate and adjusting the bombilla as needed. Once things are just right, the server pours water again and passes the mate to the person next to them, and on it goes around the group - each person drinks down the contents, passes it back to the server, and the cycle repeats. A good server can work the same yerba for a LONG time - at least for one liter of hot water, often more.

Mate itself is suspected of having a lot of good health benefits - high in antioxidants, possibly a natural appetite suppressent/weight loss aid...all kinds of stuff. It tastes a little bitter at first, and probably everyone has burned their tongues or lips at least a few times between the hot mate and the hot bombilla (the downside of metal straws is that they heat up awfully fast), but I am convinced that had Ben Franklin been Uruguayan, his famous quote would read that mate is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. So, when I come up to you with a strange looking cup filled with some steaming green stuff and a weird metal straw...drink up - you might just like it!

Strangers on the Bus

Yesterday marked my official three-month anniversary with Uruguay, and it is really quite amazing to think about how much things have changed since September. I remember thinking during my first few days that Montevideo seemed absolutely enormous – not Houston big or Buenos Aires big, or even Accra big for that matter, but still somehow massive and forbidding, a concrete-and-brick giant on the Rio de la Plata…and then I learned my way around the city, how to walk downtown in an hour, how to get to two different beaches in 50 minutes or less, where the parks are, where the fresh fruit and vegetable market in the neighborhood is held every Saturday, which buses go to which parts of town. Suddenly, the previously indomitable Nephelim-by-the-river (so sue me…one of my free-time activities is studying Hebrew) began to feel like a big village. I take the bus to and from work, and I know people – the little girl in her school uniform with her baby brother in tow, the local high school students on their way to afternoon class, the night workers in the food packing plant. The same inspector, blue suit and dark sunglasses, gets on at the same stop almost every day to check tickets, and I have his routine memorized. He gets on at the first stop once we have turned off of Avenida General Flores, chats for about 5 minutes with the driver, and then works his way through the cabin, checking tickets. He prefers to check tickets from his right to his left, always tears off the same corner (upper right), and as he hands back the ticket says “gracias” with an accent that makes him sound more Italian than Uruguayan.

The city itself has changed, too. I got here in the bleak, gray, rainy winter…memories of my first month here are dominated by sunless days, having to wear three layers even while inside buildings just to keep the chill down, and of gray – gray buildings, gray streets, gray skies, and gray attitudes. But then, the sun came up and with it came the spring. It has been, at times, a chilly spring, but a sunny one. Montevideo is beautiful in the spring – the jacarandas bloom and start raining purple blossoms onto the sidewalk, the jasmines come back to life and the whole city smells like perfume from the people selling jasmine blossoms on every street corner, the sky is an intense blue, the tree-lined streets which seemed so drab suddenly become shady, green avenues that are delightful for walks, and those parks and beaches that I discovered are actually worth visiting to sit under the eucalyptus trees with a book.

It has been said before that cities are like people, with distinct personalities, likes and dislikes, ways of life, attitudes, and moods. In my experience, this is true, but leaves out one important detail. For me at least, Montevideo itself is more than just the setting for my year with YAGM; it has become a character in the story as much as any person here. It is, in its own way, a part of my community here. It might not talk to me (I think I would be very concerned about my mental health if the sidewalk one day just decided to start up a conversation with me), but nonetheless, I feel on some level like Montevideo is not just a place, but an active member of my story, growing, changing, sharing.

Of course, it really is the people here that make the community -Montevideo, alive as it might be, is no substitute for friends, and even strangers. My friends and their role in my life here is obvious – they are the people I talk to, have meals with, work with, play with, matear with, and live with. We have been to organ concerts, murgas, and music museums; Bible studies, business meetings, and all kinds of worship services; parks, beaches, fairs, and apartment parties. I could name names, but that would simply not be fair to anyone left off the list – all of the church members, staff at La Obra, folks in grupo de jovenes and choir, fellow residents of Piso 1 in 8 de Octubre 3328, fellow volunteers, and the like have been so integral to my experiences here that I cant not mention someone, and I have too many people to mention.

The most strikingly different aspect of my life-in-community here, though, are the strangers. I don’t know the check-out girls at the supermarket, the UCOT inspector on the bus, the little girl with her baby brother, the liceo students, the night workers, the book seller on 8 de Octubre with books ranging from a bilingual edition of Martin Fierro to The Kama Sutra of Oral Sex, the jasmine sellers, the blind woman with the tin can in front of the hospital next door to the church, or any other of the recurring incidental characters in my story here, but I still feel some odd sense of connection to them. They are a part of my life; I see them all almost every day, and they see me. We ride the same buses and work on the same block, shop in the same MultiAhorro and walk past the same kioscos and statue of Larrañaga. We might not talk, or even know each other, but we nonetheless share so many experiences, small as they may be, with each other every day. I notice when someone is missing, when the little girl doesn’t catch the bus or the book seller decides to take a Saturday off. In our own way, we are a community – not a community of friends or co-workers, but of people sharing the living space and, I suspect, silently watching out for each other when we can.

To close on an extremely anti-climactic, house-keeping note...I am about to go back and add captions to all the photos in the photo entry from last month, so if you have been dying to know the who, what, when, and where of those, now is your chance!

Título

I am not likely to win the original title award this week, that´s for sure. For that matter, I´m not likely to win much sweeping praise for the content, either. Today we have, for your reading pleasure, a Top Ten List!



THE TOP TEN FUNNY LANGUAGE GOOFS OF THE PAST THREE MONTHS



These are not limited to my own, but will be heavily comprised of them.



10. The "du isst" vs. "die fledermause ist" confusion in which I thought Dorothea said I was a banana rather than saying that I was eating a banana.

9. "Sí, la Biblia es de mí." NOT what I meant to say...that implies authorship rather than ownership. Happened in a Bible study, no less...I was corrected VERY quickly for that goof, probably out of fear of a lightning strike.

8. Pronunciation confusion between "the passive voice" and "the Backstreet Boys" which led to a lot of questions on my part about the quality of class content here in Uruguay.

7. "¿Puedo impresar un documento acá?" "¿Cómo?" "Necesito impresar una forma." "Umm...¿necesitás IMPRIMIR algo?" People get confused when you make up words for "to print" and then say them with confidence...

6. My frequently manifested inability to get acá and allá right...I constantly mix them up, resulting in an almost conditioned response on my part to correct myself anytime I use the words. Example: "Sí, tenemos muchos amigos allá...acá. Actualmente, acá y allá."

5. "¿Cuánto tiempo vas a estar acá?" "Dos semanas." No, I´m not going to be here for two weeks; I had perhaps been in Montevideo for two weeks at that point, but yeah...definitely not to the two weeks left point.

4. Anything to do with Kirsten´s name; she has had her name mangled in an incredible variety of ways. My favorite is little Alejandra´s "Kishnaer," personally.

3. This one requires a little explanation. In this part of the world, the equivalent of "asking someone up for coffee" or to "come see my etchings" is an invitation to "tomar mate" followed either by a question about what happens if there´s no yerba (Argentina) or a flat-out declaration that "yerba no hay" (Uruguayans are a little more direct). This topic came up in a work team meeting (go figure), and Dorothea meant to say that "this is something we should know about" so we can get the joke, etc. However, what she SAID was "this is something we should do." For those of you wondering how Uruguay was introduced to Dr. Schnortzelfitz-style laughter, voila.

2. Overheard while Claudio and KD reviewed a powerpoint about major cities in the U.S. when they reached the slide on Phoenix: "Ahhh, sí, yo conozco esta...la ciudad de Penis." I suspect that if Claudio ever gets off a plane in the U.S. on his way to Arizona, he will be grateful that he now knows NOT to tell people he´s trying to find "Penis" in the airport.

1. Naughty word confusions I have made: "mariposa" and "maricon," (butterfly v. f#ggot) "pucho" and "puto," (cigarrette v. male whore/substitute for the f word) and "pene" and "peine (penis v. comb).

Green shoots in the Montevideo dirt

I have heard plenty of people criticize the usefulness of church-wide gatherings and conferences. "They´re just wastes of time," people will say. "People either don´t listen and just go to schmooze and eat catered food, or else they get really excited about new ideas and then not do anything."

I would love to show these skeptics life at Nuestro Salvador in Montevideo after the Vida y Misión Assembly a few weeks ago. Two of the congregants, Juan and Daniela, went to Buenos Aires for the gathering, as did Pastora Wilma, KD, and I. We all had our moments of excitement connected with the asamblea: KD and I got to see our fellow YAGMs for the first time in 2 months, Wilma got to lead one of the small groups and spend time with friends from seminary, and Juan y Daniela had huge "aHA" moments about their role as laypeople in the congregation.

The good times I had with the rest of the group at asamblea are just not that important compared to Juan and Daniela´s epiphanies. Even my "arrival" moment, culturally and linguistically, where at least 2 people in my small group thought I was Uruguayan until I gave my personal faith story and had no problems at all conversing, listening, and even sharing a story with a group, is small potatoes.

One of the big struggles that I´d noticed during my first few months here in Montevideo was the level of work Wilma´s been bearing as the pastor. All church programming was her responsibility - Bible studies, workshops, visitation, mission activities, Sunday worship - everything. People in the congregation seemed to recognize that isn´t the ideal model of church life, the pastor in the center of everything and the congregants just sort of attending, but also seemed reluctant to take on any of her roles. Enter the assembly and the theme of mayordomía, the good stewardship of the gifts we have, those things we can contribute to the life of the kingdom. Juan and Daniela took in the message like sponges.

I´ve been helping out some with the Wednesday evening Old Testament Bible Study since getting here, and on the Wednesday after the assembly, I had my first solo flight with leading the Bible Study as Wilma wasn´t able to make it. We only had a little bit of text to work with, so we decided to do a brief Bible study and then talk about the assembly, since Juan and Daniela were both present and VERY excited to share. I was blown away; everything they said was everything that I´d noticed, that KD had noticed, and that Wilma had, once or twice, verbally expressed frustration over. Juan talked about how the assembly helped him recognize that being a layperson didn´t disqualify him from serving God in the church context; he was particularly taken with Luther´s quote about how a mother changing her baby´s diaper is serving God as much or more than a monk praying in a monastery. Daniela, meanwhile, had an arm-long list of things that could be done to boost member involvement in church programming. She proposed, and has seen realized, a series of workshops to equip the congregation to perform visitation ministry (a vital need at Nuestro Salvador, as there are many "shut-ins" among the older members of the chuch and several other people in need of hospital visitation) and to learn more about the liturgy, worship, and what to do if Wilma can´t be there on a Sunday.

The two of them have also re-ignited the children´s ministry that the church used to have. Juan and his wife, Eva, have several grandchildren living in the city, and Daniela has 2 little nephews here, and accordingly, both of them have been eager to see something come about to provide the kids with Bible/Christian education. Well, Juan and Eva volunteered their house as a meeting place, and last Friday we had our official first children´s time since I´ve been here. It went magnificently; Eva provided the snacks, we put on some VeggieTales en español, and the kids ALL participated, ranging from 4 year old Alejandra, the daughter of our neighbors in the church building (Carlos and Carla) to the oldest of the grandkids present, who is 11-ish. It was beautiful.

The next day, another green bud sprouted on the branch as things at Misión San Juan took a much-needed turn for the better. Wilma had another commitment, so it was up to me to go out to El Cerro, a poorer neighborhood on the other side of the city, and hope/pray that kids would show up. There have been all kinds of problems connected with the ministry in El Cerro since we´ve been here - rumors that after Meredith´s (last year´s YAGM volunteer here) departure the program wouldn´t continue, a rumor about nepotism in the church (completely unfounded), and the cultural reality of people in Montevideo not wanting to go out in the rain or leave the beach/soccer pitch when it´s sunny. In 7 weeks, we´d have one time with the kids. I was not optimistic on the bus ride out, and I was not optimistic when I got to the house which is home to the mission, only to find that no one was home. That, though, changed - Gladis and her daughter were just a little late in getting back from a medical appointment - and then the waiting game began...would any kids show up, other than Gladis´ grandson, Federico?

That answer was, for an incredible change, YES. Only one, but it is a sign of life. Nicolas decided to come, as did several of the mothers in the community (the mission has a children´s program and also one for mothers). The kids and I read a little bit of a Bible story (I´m working my way through the story of Gideon with them), then drew for a little while, and then wrapped up with some fútbol...soccer for you estadounidenses. It was great fun, and more than that, proof of life in a mission that I´d thought was on its deathbed. It may be premature to assume that things at San Juan will be back to the rollicking salad days of last year with 10-15 kids every Saturday, but where there is God, there is life and hope. Take THAT all you workshop cynics!

It is, once again, time to ponder the eternal mysteries that pour forth from the mind of Franklin Ishida. This month´s theme has already been touched upon somewhat in prior entries, but today´s purpose is to bring in the faith dynamic - where is God in the midst of my estadounidense mind struggles? BTW, has anyone else noticed the "dense" in "estadounidense" before? Canadian friends, feel free to make a joke here.

Saying that reading the Bible is dangerous to insular, oft-imperialistic North American thought is an understatement. If there is any other text out there in the world that comes down so hard on capitalism, multinational corporations, imperialism, self-centered thinking, reckless individualism, and pork rinds as the Bible, I have yet to encounter it. Of course, the grand irony is how often the Bible is used to justify those things.

This, however, is not going to be a claws-out assault on biblical misuse or the imposition of one´s politics upon the Bible, forming it to be what you want it to be. After all, that just perpetuates a cycle of scripture wars and hard feelings, which is as counterproductive a thing as there can be. Rather, this is about my own journey, the Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other, as I´ve grown and been changed by God in my times in the world.

Probably the hardest thing for anyone from the West/North (take your pick on the nomenclature) to see when they´re out of their comfortable country of origin is poverty. Poverty exists in the West, too, but a few people hustling you for change on the street or sleeping on the heat grates is a different experience from seeing children with stomachs distended from hunger and malnutrition, or entire neighborhoods of tin-and-plywood shacks. It´s unsettling and can shake the faith of even the most devout person, especially once you get to know the children or the people living in the shanty town.

I´ve heard many a televangelist and misinformed Christian attribute prosperity, both personal and national, to God´s special blessing, to the idea that God materially rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked with poverty. That, however, does an incredible disservice to a great many people that I´ve met all over the world. I simply cannot believe that Zurqina, a little girl whose mother has a stall in a food market on the University of Ghana´s campus, is living in desperate poverty because she and her mother are just bad people. Conversely, I don´t see Donald Trump as being a great man of God or a towering example of morality simply because he has more money in the bank than most other humans can ever dream of having.

I´ve found that money means nothing regarding how "good" or "bad" a person is. There are rich people who make their money by hurting other people, and there are rich people who make their money by being fair business people, and who typically give back plenty of what they have. There are poor people who are wonderful people, living lives filled with the fruits of the Spirit, and there are poor people who use their poverty as an excuse for alcoholism and domestic violence. People, at the end of a day, are people - they´re not good, they´re not bad, they´re people. Sometimes, people choose to hurt other people, and sometimes they choose to build others up.

When people choose to hurt others, to oppress them, to take advantage of them for a buck, a cycle of poverty is created - I´m going to take your money and resources, then keep you at a level of development that serves my needs, but doesn´t give you much of a chance to break free. This isn´t biblical; this isn´t in line with a Living Word of jubilee years, 31 chapters of Proverbs exhorting care for widows and orphans and standing up for the rights of the oppressed, prophets who identify abuse of the poor as one of the principle sins of their people, a Messiah who chooses to live without wordly comforts but rather only what He needs to live, and a faith community that shares all its goods in common. I raise my voice about the ways things are and the way things could be not because I´m just another 22 year old stereotypical liberal; I do it because it´s my faith.

I don´t think God has a favorite political party, or that God loves one or two nations while pouring contempt on the rest of them. I don´t think God tosses down heaven-sent moneybags to people for not fornicating. I think God gave us a world filled with the good things that we need to live, and that our mission as followers of God, followers of Christ, is to be serious about, and faithful to, God´s call to stewardship - to find ways to ensure that starvation, lack of access to clean drinking water, lack of access to adequate health care, pollution, and the many other ills that too often characterize human life in the world outside the U.S., Canada, and Western Europe become nonexistent, or at the very least incredibly rare. We have the means, but do we have the boldness to say "no!" to comfortable consumerism, to accept the radical call to take up the cross and follow Jesus in His path of vulnerability and rejection of the easy life?

Maybe that´s not a fair question; some days, I´m the kind of person who´s ready to storm the walls and proclaim a year of jubilee, but other times, it´s not so easy. Maybe it´s a process, a dialectical journey requiring patience, commitment, and above all, faith in a God who has called us to something more than living for ourselves and refusing to think of every other beautiful child of God in the world as just that - our brother or sister, created in the likeness of the same God. Maybe, in the words of John Lennon, I´m just a dreamer, but just maybe, I´m not the only one.

Ich kann hablar en several languages

Since I´ll be on retreat in Colonia Valdense next Monday, this entry is next week´s entry served up a little early. I´ve been thinking a lot this week about language and the process (and, at times, struggle) I´ve been through over the past two months or so. When I first got here, I frankly overrated my ability to recall immediately and without trouble my six years of Spanish classes; I figured after a week or two, once I got used to the new accent, I´d be cooking with gas and chattering away.

Not so much. The first month was linguistic torture, and I am only slightly exaggerating in calling La Obra my personal foreign language Abu-Ghraib. It was a scenario practically designed to be about 10 fathoms over my Spanish-speaking head - kids who don´t all get that I don´t speak Spanish like a native speaker, adults who like to make constant jokes and talk very rapidly, teaching teens English and having to explain the idiosyncracies of my crazy native language while not grasping all the idiosyncracies of THEIR crazy native language, and so on. Pair that up with the church´s free-for-all Bible study conversations and a generous amount of conversation with new friends, and you can understand why I literally had a headache at the end of every day for my first two weeks.

I was, quite frankly, disappointed in and depressed over, my level of Spanish. I even considered, for at least a few days, looking into classes. Even once or twice I caught the little voice in my head saying that I should have lied, or been more modest (take your pick) on my YAGM app, listed my Spanish as tourist-level, and consequently been sent somewhere non-Spanish speaking for the year. I started reading my Greek New Testament every day, if just to remind myself that at least I had one language other than English under my belt.

And then, sometime in the first week or so of October, it happened. That week, Dorothea had started to teach me a little German, and the headaches had been gone for a week or so. I went to bed, and I started to dream....but not in English. My dream was in SPANISH, with the exception of a few sentences in English, and a very memorabl sentence or two in German. I had a trilingual dream. When I woke up, I just started laughing.

That was the event I needed to spur me on. Once the battle in my sub-conscious was won by the forces of castellano, the war´s end was at hand. I felt encouraged that I COULD learn to speak Spanish (and German, too, evidently), and that confidence helped me begin to break out of my linguistic shell. Conversations suddenly began to happen with frequency and with fewer awkward pauses while I tried to think of a response. I kept on dreaming in a delightful mix of languages, and now it´s almost exclusively en español. I bought a little book to write new words in to help me increase my vocabulary.

Then, I broke down and did the smartest thing I´ve done in two months. Every morning, I like to read my Bible before heading out to work, and on the bus, I typically take advantage of the 30 minutes or so of sitting still and not having things to do and make it my main prayer time of the day. I had been doing it in English, but then the thought came to me - "why not do it in Spanish?" So, one day, I did. That day, I had markedly less trouble with my Spanish. I did it again the next day, with the same basic results. I kept it up, and after a week realized that I was, on the whole, thinking in Spanish rather than English.

Now, over the past few weeks, it´s gotten to the point that English words sound, and feel, weird to me when they come out of my mouth, and I actually prefer to go through the day without using English. I´m not exactly soaring in my Spanish, but it´s better than it was and is getting better everyday. My German, too, is growing (slowly), and I´m getting the hang of biblical Hebrew in my spare time. This year, the church season´s name has been particularly apt - it really HAS been Pentecost.

¡Fotos!

There are a TON of these, but I am still going to, a month after posting them, go through them all and tell you about each one. Hope you brought a snack; this might take a while. From top to bottom...

1. The obligatory conversational pose between the two YAGM volunteers; this was pretty early on in our time in Montevideo.

2. Dorothea, our favorite German flatmate, with Carlos, Carla, their nephew, and their daugher, Alejandra.

3. KD and Dorothea enjoying the sun out on the lower level of our roof; I prefer the upper level, as it is shadier and catches the breeze.

4. The view from the roof - we live on a pretty busy street, Avenida 8 de Octubre. Its a mostly commercial neighborhood with lots of shops - we live next door to a supermarket!

5. Speaking of supermarket, it is the large, red building in this photo, taken from my bedroom. My room looks out over the patio (hence the trees) toward MultiAhorro. Multi looks really cool when the sky is clear blue and the sun is on the other side of the church.

6. Karin and Fafre, two of my Uruguayan friends, getting ready for Un Trato Por El Buentrato. Karin painted Fafre´s face up in mime-like fashion; she has a peace sign on her cheek.

7. After the face painting session (I´m sporting the Uruguayan flag on my cheek), we went out into the neighborhood to "vaccinate" people against child abuse with candy, banners, and (of course) silly hats.

8. Our choir in the Iglesia Valdense (well, the tenors and basses), working hard at learning a song for the Fiesta de Canto back in October.

9. For those of you wondering what mate looks like, voìla. Canarias is THE brand of yerba to buy here; this is an ad poster seen at the Prado Exposition.

10. La Ciudad Vieja (The Old City) as seen from the end of the very long jetty at the entrance of the harbor.

11. Probably the most famous building in Montevideo, the sits right on the Plaza Independencia.

12. Kirsten, Milton, and I enjoying the free entertainment provided by a dance party at La Obra...this the surreal day I wrote about back in October.

13. Fortunately, this see-saw has been taken out of commission...it´s an absolute death trap. Predictably, that meant it was a great hit with the kids at La Obra.

14. Geanny and Marcos climbing on the cross in the courtyard/recreation area at La Obra...I´ll let you debate the theological significance of this one.

15. The afternoon crew at La Obra (Alejandra in orange, Roman, Natalia in the lab coat-ish uniform), plus KD, Dorothea, and Ana the cook enjoying the last moments of peace before the kids arrive.

16. Me with Geanny (he´s a big fan of "el caballito," horsie rides); I´m talking to another kid, Aldo. Suffice it to say that days when they show up are seldom dull...

17. Machaela (pink jacket) and Ximena posing at the music museum...awwwww.

18. This picture IS Club de Niños in a nutshell - kids running and in general acting goofy in an environment designed to let them do that, in a safe learning context, despite their home lives and socioeconomic positions. Posing for the picture, we have one of the Christians (there are three), Carolina, and Laura, with Denis making a guest appearance in the background.

19. Roman either talking to the kids, or sneezing - take your pick.

20. During our time at the music museum, the kids got to take to the dancefloor and do a little folk dance, and they ate it up. In the center of the picture are Emilia and Romina.

21. The kids also got to play around with all kinds of musical instruments from all over the continent...here they are getting to play a little Andean music with the help of the museum´s curator, who seriously broke it down on the two flutes. It was COOL.

22. Some of the craziest people you could ever hope to meet - Rafael (our choir director), a girl whose name I don´t recall, Silvia, and Lucia. We know all of them through the grupo de jóvenes at the Iglesia Valdense.

23. Madness on the bus: Kirsten smiling away, Sebastian (Wilma´s son) and Tiví/Juliocésar doing I-don´t-know-what, and Rafa and Karin just sort of looking on cluelessly. My shoulder makes a cameo appearance in the corner.

24. Lucia blowing out her birthday candles; the cake involved dulce de leche and was thusly delicious.

25. Conversational poses at grupo de jóvenes with Silvia, Tiví, Jorge Mal, Natalia, and again, part of my arm in my blue plaid shirt.

26. Back to orientation: the group wandering around the colorfully painted houses of La Boca, the old immigrant neighborhood in Buenos Aires. Think tango in seedy bars and whorehouses...oh yeah.

27. The group with two of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo. They shared their stories with us just that evening; it was an incredibly moving experience.

28. The Madres on their weekly march in the Plaza de Mayo.

29. The old steel bridge across the Riochuelo in La Boca.

Estadounidense, Redux

So, I promised the positive side of my struggle with my identity as a U.S. citizen who is extremely conscious of his country´s extremely shoddy record in international relations, and of the perceptions (several of which are probably very right-on) that much of the rest of the world has concerning the U.S., and not even 24 hours after part one, I feel ready to bring my thoughts on this matter to some degree of completion.

The upswing is that, for the first time in my life, I don´t feel apathetic about my identity and citizenship. That little blue passport, and the country it represents, isn´t just a tool to get me in and out of all the countries of the world; it´s an integral part of who I am. I might criticize, I might be outraged, I might be angry, I might be desperate for a change, but by God, I am a passionate United States citizen who cares about his country and wants it to make just, right-minded decisions about its actions in the world. When I hear about liberty and justice for all, it´s not just the end of a pledge; it´s the beginning of a journey. If this is what we are going to stand for as a nation, and it is a glorious ideal to pursue, then we need to be committed to understanding what that means and how then we are to live in the world as a nation. I don´t think that imperial-minded relations with the rest of the world promote liberty or justice; in fact, I tend to seem imperialism as the opposite of those things. It undercuts those very things, at home and abroad, in the name of more wealth, more power, and more prestige.

So, where´s the good news in this? The good news is that we always have a choice - a choice as people, a choice as communities, a choice as a nation. We can genuinely try to understand what peace and justice mean in a global context, or we can ignore the question and then try to shut up our collective conscience with more meaningless consumerism. We can protect ourselves and our citizens from harm, or we can behave recklessly, using our force to pre-emptively terminate threats that probably don´t exist, all the while considering the other possible benefits of this use of force. We can promote fair global economic policies that encourage, rather than exploit, developing nations, or we can pretend that those people over there are only starving because of their own corrupt governments. We can be a republic that defends the civil liberties of its people and balanced economic development of its states and that only uses its military power in times of absolute global crisis when not using force would be suicide or irresponsible, or we can be an empire that puts right-of-government above right-of-citizen, puts reckless global corporate capitalism above fair, equitable economics, and that flexes its military muscle whenever it so desires. That choice is in our hands - in my hands, in your hands. I know which one I want, which one leads to genuine national security, prosperity, and liberty.

If you´ve had the patience to wade through all of this, I salute you, and I´ll reward you next week with HUMOR...you know, that thing I like but haven´t really employed this week? Yeah, ít´ll be back next time - promise!

Estadounidense

Despite concerning the same theme as my Franklin´s Choice entry of the month, this is not, in fact, that entry...this month, you get TWO heady entries for the price of one! Happy Reformation Day (a day late).

Monday, when I should have been updating (this is, after all, Mate Mondays), I was instead at the Embassy of the United States of America to the Oriental Republic of Uruguay. Say that ten times fast. Good. And now in Spanish - La Embajada de los Estados Unidos de América a la República Oriental del Uruguay. You can say that ten times fast as well, if you so desire. Silliness aside, I had to go to the embassy to get extra pages added to my passport. If you absolutely must go to a U.S. embassy while abroad, this is the reason to have to do it - it´s (for a goverment-run office) fairly quick and painless and does not involve interrogation; the same cannot be said about procedures for lost/stolen passports, tax concerns, etc.

The embassy, quite frankly, is a shabby testimony to what I would call the American ideal, but is probably a wonderful example of what the U.S. has become in the eyes of the rest of the world since 1898. You wouldn´t have thought that a little old affair like the Spanish-American War (a 6-month or so struggle between the U.S. and, in the words of Dave Barry, "a nation with the military prowess of a tuna casserolle") would be a defining moment in U.S., and world, history, but it is. The day we sailed into Manila Bay with guns blazing was the day that the Republic died and the Empire was born.

Earlier in my time here, I read a rather tedious, although brief, book on protecting Christianity from imperialism. I can´t say that I fully agreed with the author, and he did an incredibly poor job of proving to me that he really believes that the current U.S. government is just another in a string of imperialist administrations rather than somehow an enormous aberration, but he had his good points, too. We decided 109 years ago that our God-given duty is to meddle and dominate, and so we meddle and dominate away, not particularly caring that the rest of the world doesn´t particularly care to be meddled with or dominated.

The U.S. embassy here in Montevideo is a beautiful, or tragic (take your pick) piece of that history. It makes no effort whatsoever to appear like more typically Uruguayan buildings in the city, which is a shame when you consider that Montevideo is an architectural gem. Nope, we came in and built an ugly, square gray concrete building that looks exactly like every other goverment office building ever put up by the U.S. Entering the building is the next affront to the sensibilities. It´s one of the very few buildings in central Montevideo to have a wall around it, and I´ve not seen a wall that tall since leaving the U.S. The capitols of both Argentina and Uruguay are more accessible than the U.S. embassy - no mean feat in countries with histories of political violence and instability. To enter, you have to wait until a security guard decides to give you access, and if you´re in line for a visa, I recommend wearing comfy shoes, as you´ll be there a while. In another nod to good ol´ American government bureaucracy, the embassy only allows entry up until noon-ish, takes about 30 holidays during the year, and isn´t open on the weekends. In other words, if you have a 9-5 Monday to Friday job, you´ll be taking the day off to do your business with Uncle Sam.

Once you´re let inside, you´re given a number for your wait in the consular section, go through security two times, and then, after surrendering your cell phone and all other signal-receiving electronic devices, are allowed into the consular office. At least they have reading material....IN ENGLISH. If you´re Uruguayan and not in the mood for U.S. News and World Report, The Economist, or Popular Mechanics, then you´re going to be bored. Oh wait, if you´re Uruguayan, you´re filling out visa paperwork while being bossed around and sent back and forth. As a U.S. citizen, one of my inalienable rights is apparently to a magazine and a relatively peaceful wait. They took care of my business without being too rude (shocker), and that was that.

I think my favorite moment came after the embassy of fun and adventure. It´s located right on La Rambla, the beautiful seaside path in the city (at least they did a good job of picking prime real estate to ruin with such an ugly building), so I decided to walk for a while and enjoy the sunshine. The natural curve of the coastline resulted in a spectacular view of the city skyline...and the embassy, sticking out like a drab concrete middle finger against the backdrop of Parque Rodó. And then, it was gone. I walked around the bend, and I didn´t have to look at it any more.

I don´t want to seem like an unpatriotic, America-bashing, Dixie Chick-lovin´ ex-pat. I love my country, and I love the ideals - life, liberty, equality before the law - that are layed out in so many of the foundational documents that we hold dear. At the same time, I know how we act - arrogant, self-absorbed, brutal. We´ve backed military dictators over freely-elected leftists to spite the Russians, not caring that those military dictators were more brutal killers than the socialists we overthrew in places like Chile and Nicaragua. We´ve hamstrung the economies of many a developing nation with the World Bank and IMF´s restructuring programs. We´ve let ourselves become ignorant of global issues and never give a thought to our impact on other peoples because our money gives us the luxury of not having to think about it - when you´re on top, you don´t have to think about the other 99 people in a heap beneath you. If they squirm too much, you can always give them a swift kick to get them to stop shaking your TV around and messing up the reception. If there´s just one thing I want to bring back home with me from all my time abroad (nopt just my time in Uruguay), it´s this - empires decline and fall because, in their time of need, they don´t have any friends. Maybe it´s time to start thinking a little more about who we really are, and what we really ought to be.

PS - This is the "Bad Cop" entry, born of frustration, exhaustion, and maybe even an oncoming cold or virus of some sort. My next musing on this subject will be the "Good Cop" spin - ideals and hope rather than cold, gray buildings on a beautiful white sand beach.

Eine Kleine Update

So, what has Kevin been up to this week, you ask? Well, I´ll tell you. For starters, I´m learning German, and by learning German, I mean making Dorothea teach me useful phrases to combine with my completely un-useful German vocabularly knowledge. My longest sentence formed thus far: "Ich habe eine fledermaus unter mein haus!" Translation: "I have a bat under my house!" I can also say, with confidence, "Ich bin ein affe" (I am a monkey), "Mir schmeken die Bananen; schmeken Dir die Bananen?" (I like bananas; do you like bananas?), and can interchange Bananen with multiple other fruits, which I can also tell you that I have. I´ll be reading Hegel and Bultmann and whatnot in NO TIME at this rate!

My work week was pretty normal, except for Friday. Kirsten and I have been putting together a (very nice, if I do say so myself) powerpoint en español about the major cities in the U.S. for geography students learning about them in class, so much of my work this week in the centro de estudios revolved around that. I also translated a story for a student from castellano to English. Work with the niños in the afternoon was fairly "normal" (if normal can ever describe working with kids), except that, shock of all shocks, the little ones BEHAVED during homework time. I could hardly believe it. On the way home from work, I ended up taking the same bus as Fabrizia (the music teacher), and she and I had a chance to talk and get to know each other better. Friday was the monstrously huge planning meeting for the next two months at La Obra - three hours of discussion about projects and whatnots. Fortunately, lots of sweets were involved - cookies, chocolate-filled wafers (with more chocolate than wafer), and best of all, a DELICIOUS birthday cake for Dorothea involving dulce de leche and mocha icing. It tasted like tiramisu, but even better.

Church work, however, was not anything resembling routine this week. Wednesday night Bible study was uproariously wonderful; we discussed the first three chapters of Genesis, and predictably, heated conversation about science and faith, gender roles and relations, sex, and how people relate to God ensued. The congregation at Nuestro Salvador is very heavily comprised of people without much prior church experience or Christian education, so for most of the people in the Bible study, this was their first time to read and talk about the biblical creation story. These are the most exciting Bible studies I´ve ever participated in because, quite frankly, they´re the only ones I´ve been to where a majority of people DON´T already know the scriptures being looked at, and consequently spend the entire study time looking bored and waiting for coffee and snacks to be served afterwards. Thursday involved making a 3-D version of the logo for the World Day of Prayer function for women at the church on Saturday, and then came the weekend....

SATURDAY: World Day of Prayer women´s gathering at Nuestro Salvador, and the first time my two job spheres have really overlapped. The women´s group from La Obra prepared the lunch for the gathering, so most of the social workers, Milton, and (duh) the women were there at the church. I got roped into playing guitar during the morning for the couple of songs that were used. The afternoon, however, was my favorite part of the day. Kirsten and I went with Karin (Wilma´s daughter, if I haven´t mentioned her before) and Fafre (another friend of ours from grupo de jóvenes) to participate in Un Trato por el Buen Trato, a campaign against child abuse and domestic violence. Now, that doesn´t sound all THAT exciting on the surface, but factor all this in: 95% of the people who participate are teens or twentysomethings. We all painted up our faces, put on silly hats, made balloon animals (new skill acquired: making a balloon dog), grabbed colorful banners, and walked down Avenida 8 de Octubre, "vaccinating" people willing to stop and talk with us against being abusive with caramelos de miel. We made our way back to the church like this, just in time to vaccinate many of the women after the day´s events wrapped up. It was a beautiful experience.

SUNDAY: Fiesta de Canto in Colonia del Sacramento. Here are the highlights:
-Getting to see the southern Uruguayan countryside in spring conditions
-The assemblage of choir directors. One of them looked like Jack Nicholson´s character from The Departed and Salvador Dali had gotten together and had a love child. He was also suitably overdramatic, rolling his eyes back in his head in ecstasy a few times, making the "spirit fingers"-esque choir director gesture, etc.
-Singing, with 150 other people, a choral version of "Blowin´ In The Wind" (or as it was pronounced by the announcer, "Browing in de Wind" ("wind" as in winding a clock, not the breeze), en español, with cheesy horn accompaniment.
-Playing the goat toe shaker in front of hundreds of people to one of our songs, a little Zulu ditty.
-Enjoying the incredible Valdense choral tradition, and the equally important Valdense tradition of filling you up with empanadas, tarta de pascualita, triples, queso, alfajores, and vino afterwards - FOR FREE. Except the vino; that was 10 pesos (45 cents) a glass, and by "glass," I mean "water glass that the average family in the U.S. has on the dinner table."
-Conversation on the way back about the history of the Valdense (Waldensian) church, Uruguay, the U.S., and all kinds of other stuff.

Heck of a week, I must say. However, all the empanada talk has made me hungry, so I´m off to track down some grub, and them maybe head to Parque Rodó with a book for the rest of my day off. Chau!

I am currently experiencing the wonderful sensation of being here, in front of a computer screen, and not actually knowing what to write about. So, in lieu of a coherent entry, here are some one-to-two-sentence snippets from the past week or two.

-I discovered the library in the church, and that it has works of theology, philosophy, and history in 7 different languages, including Bibles in all of those languages (INCLUDING a Septuagint that is now in my room, being read). I am in HEAVEN.

-It only seems to be sunny on my days off (not that this is so bad); last weekend was sunny on Saturday morning, Sunday, and Monday, and this week is shaping out to be the same, although it´s cloudy out now. I could definitely stand a week of uninterrupted sunshine, though - my Texas-reared body doesn´t quite know how to make enough Vitamin D with so comparatively little sunshine.

-I´m having to learn, slowly, how to adequately make my own tortillas, since they apparently aren´t sold anywhere in Montevideo.

-I´ve also mastered the art of making some good black bean soup; feel free to ask me for details.

-Uruguay has, go figure, lots of really good cheese, making it a perfect compliment to it´s large wine-producing neighbor...

-My guitar and I have been having more quality time together since getting here than has been had in the past year or so.

-Yes, yes, I DO have pictures to put up, and they will go up this week - all I have to do is put them on my flash drive.

Franklin´s Choice, Vol. 2

Well, it´s that time of the month again. On second thought, maybe I should say that differently. It´s now time for October´s official Franklin-prompted reflection of the month. This month, my mission (the acceptance of which is not optional) is to think about the concept of "mission" and how it applies to my context here in Uruguay as a YAGM.

Coming up with a precise definition of my "mission" here is not an easy task, but at the same time, I don´t want to fall into the trap of saying that my "ministry of presence" doesn´t have specific focii, purposes, and (to use the word-of month) a "mission." Of course, we´re all missionaries in our own ways - we all, ultimately, answer God´s call and act toward the purposes that God gives us. Sometimes, that call and subsequent mission doesn´t take a person farther, physically, than their home town and ordinary life. Sometimes, that call plants you along the Rio de la Plata, doing things you never once saw yourself doing.

Last month, I talked a good deal about knowing that I am where I´m supposed to be. Defining purpose, though, is sometimes much more difficult. I´ve, by now, lost count of how many days I´ve come in from La Obra, asking myself how on earth I can do the tasks I´m given, or not given. That, for me, is where the idea of presence comes in. Some days, I have no greater call or purpose than just to be physically present at La Obra, or at Mision San Juan, or at the church, and see where God takes the day. Sometimes, it feels like I don´t get taken very far - "woo-hoo, I spent 5 hours at work, and all I did was spell "window" for someone, grab a box off a shelf for someone, and give three piggy-back rides." The temptation on these days to drift toward meaningless, toward the ultimate abyss of human thought, is sometimes fairly strong. Did I make a difference? Is this going to be the next 300 days of my life? Do I, and the things that I do, ultimately MATTER?

In the midst of questions and doubt, though, God tends to come. God, for me, doesn´t come in the crass reasoning I try to employ to deflect the questions - "butterfly effect" arguments about how every action ultimately changes reality no matter how small it is. Using logic like that, I´ve found, only creates extended existential mind-wars, the axis of Sartre and Heidegger versus Barth, Moltmann, and Kevin. Instead, what I find much more useful is revelation, the uncovering of things hidden from my reason by human capacity to look only at the surface and no deeper. Spelling "window" helped a junior high student with their English homework. Grabbing a box off the top shelf helped Lili and Virginia continue setting up the big discount clothing sale. Giving those piggy-back rides helped those three kids to smile, laugh, and enjoy themselves. I help people, whether I realize it or not, and ultimately, that´s what mission is all about - it´s about washing feet, it´s about serving where you are and where you can. It´s about living with people and for people, not just for yourself and your own intimates.

It´s not easy, either, and not just because of the doubts and the questions, those subtle little barbs of the Enemy. Sometimes, it´s hard because of not having clue one how to do certain things - speak the language, teach the kids, play the music. However, God comes to those doubts, too, practical as they may be, and gives us those moments of grace and revelation that somehow empower us to keep going - the realization, when I woke up this morning, that for two nights in a row know I´ve been dreaming in Spanish more than English, and that the kids remember things I´ve said and (get this) fight to sit next to me sometimes, and that I figured out two of the songs from last Sunday´s worship on my guitar in less than 15 minutes of playing around with them. It´s been said to the point of cliché, but it still bears repeating for its truth - God doesn´t call the equipped; God equips the called.

When the white knight is talking backwards, and the Red Queen is off with her head...

The past few days in Uruguay have been mildly surreal, and at moments have left me wondering if somebody spiked my mate with LSD. It all started on Thursday evening at grupo de jóvenes. We were promised "una sorpresa" by Fafre after choir practice, and the surprise turned out to be food! Every so often, the group gets together to make dinner in addition to the usual mate-drinking, conversation/joking around, and spiritual reflection time. Kirsten, Johannes, Dorothea, and I helped make the most international batch of lemonade ever prepared - the work of people from three different continents went into the end result. It was a smidge stronge, but still got the job done.

That, however, was not the surreal part. THAT came when we moved up to the church sanctuary while the food finished cooking. The lights were off and a few candles were lit and spread out across the stage area, along with cushions. A boombox was playing a cd of jungle noises and tribal drumming. That was my first clue that this was not going to be a normal evening. After a few minutes of sitting around on the stage, the dancing started. We all got to our feet, and a few people started wildly dancing around the stage while making Indian noises - whoops, hollers, chants, etc. After a few moments of bewildered observation, Lucia grabbed me and pulled me into the midst of the dancing, which by that point had started to become a little more orderly - we all formed a sort-of conga line and stomped and jumped and the like, whooping and hollering continuing the whole time, even when we started to do this backwards. It felt like a cosmically-enlightened version of the bunny hop.

After a little bit, one of the guys in the group stopped the music and had us all sit or lie down on the stage and close our eyes. He guided us through a basic breathing exercise/tension-relieving exercise, and then asked us to start thinking about the day before, then tomorrow, then 3 months in the past, then 3 months in the future, then 10 years in the past, and so on. It was a really nice excercise, actually - I´d not stopped to think about who I was that far in the past for a long time. I remembered the day after school got out in 1997, the end of elementary school for me. I remembered reading Moby Dick out on the steps up to our new pool and deck, which had just been put in a few days prior. I also remembered how I didn´t part my hair back then, and that I had windshield-sized glasses. After the thought excercise was over, we had to pick a partner and talk about it. That was maybe a smidge more challenging for me than for most of the other people in the room, but I feel more confident in my castellano now than I did a month ago, or even a few weeks ago.

However, the moment of peace and clarity only lasted for that - a moment. Our attention was then drawn to Fafre and two other members of the group who were dressed like cavemen and grunting around a tent that had been made in the middle of the sanctuary. Fafre nearly killed himself tripping over a pew. We were, after a little bit of a show, brought into the tent, where we talked about Christian community, took the bread and wine, and sang. I´m a little self-conscious during the song-times at GdJ; I always want to sing, but I don´t necessarily know the songs, so I just sort of muddle along, to the occasional amusement of people like Karin who sit near me. Fortunately, we did sing a couple that I knew, including Nnung Yei Dah, to the delight of Kirsten and me. We then broke for dinner (at midnight), and thus was my Thursday.

Friday, however, continued the surreal trend. The morning passed fairly uneventfully, until lunchtime. The women´s group and the jóvenes were kicking their heels up to celebrate some birthdays, and it was PARTY TIME. There were alfajores (the world´s best cookie sandwiches - think sugar cookies stuffed with dulce de leche and coconut flakes), freshly-fried doughnuts, and a freaking INCREDIBLE cake - white layered cake with dulce de leche and merengue icing. That, while being out of the ordinary, was not the really surreal part. No, that would be the dancing.

Those who know me know that I only dance if I am either asked to dance by someone, or if I have perhaps been indulging in certain liquid refreshments. The former is how I ended up dancing to some hot Latin tunes, a little, on Friday, with some very nice Uruguayas who are old enough to be my mom. The first just sort of grabbed me and told me to "¡Bailá!," and I was in no position not to. She then, after a few minutes, handed me off to a short black woman with very short hair and facial features that somehow remind me of my high school AP history teacher. This one danced at my pace and level of ability ("Caucasian") for a few minutes, and then started laughing, yelled "¡AZÚCAR!" and kicked it into high gear, her dance-challenged American partner struggling to keep up. It was like dancing with Celia Cruz, except in no way, shape, or form necrophilic. The rest of the dance time passed fairly peacefully - the music teacher, Fabrizia, tried to teach me how to cumbia (we´re not all the way yet on that one), and I did a little of my normal standing around near the refreshments, looking like the dad who got suckered into volunteering to work at his kids´ prom.

After the dancing died down a little bit, I went off to get ready for the afternoon with the kids. That, too, was a little out of the ordinary thanks to the weather. There was a quite a little storm here yesterday, and it was dark as night for a good 20-30 minutes or so at 13.00. Since it was raining, we couldn´t do a whole lot, so we ended up watching 2 hours´worth of The Simpsons (en español) with the 12-15 kids who showed up.

The surreality seems to have passed, for now, with the storm, but it´s always good to know that my life here can be, and often is, just as random and droll as my life back home!
After the dancing

It´s been one month since you...oh, nevermind

Lame pseudo-attempts at Barenaked Ladies humor aside, it really HAS been one month since I arrived here in Montevideo. It´s odd to think that´s the case, as it definitely hasn´t felt like a month. A week occasionally, a decade from time-to-time, but not a month yet.

As such, I think it´s time for...a top ten list this week! This time around, we´ll make it the top ten most thoroughly memorable experiences of my first month.

10. Toothpaste Chernoybl on my very first night.
9. The kids drawing pictures and giving them to me on Friday.
8. Our second Saturday at the mission, when the neighbor´s cat kept disrupting the story of the Samaritan woman at the well.
7. Martín and Dorotea scaring the absolute daylights out me a few nights ago - my very loud "AAAAAAHHHHHHH, JEEEEEEEESUS!" could probably be heard in Buenos Aires.
6. "¡Hace el monito, Kevin!" after it was discovered by the kids that I do a monkey impression.
5. Singing with Kirsten (in English) for our first Sunday service at Nuestro Salvador.
4. The extremely marijuana-scented rock concert last weekend - mediocre quality, but the singer only had one leg and had to use crutches to stand in front of the mic. He also used the word "puto" with great frequency - feel free to google that if you need a translation. Now THAT´S rock n roll!
3. People thinking I was Uruguayan on two different occasions on the same day!
2. First time with the grupo de jóvenes - I STILL only know about 5 names from the group, but a more welcoming bunch is harder to find.
1. TIE - When the kids discovered that I can work wonders with a see-saw, or the sheer sense of community and (I daresay) family that I´ve felt at Wilma´s house when we´ve been invited over for dinner or mate.

I will try to put some pictures up this week, but I make no guarantees. Chau!

And now for something completely different

So, after the somewhat heavier content of the past few entries, I decided that a little breath of fresh spring air might be in order. The seasons just officially changed here in Uruguay, so to celebrate, how about something about the good times?

Not surprisingly, utter ridiculousness stalks my life just as much here as it did in the US and in Ghana. This, of course, is not the bad sort of ridiculousness - lack of meaning, irrational pain, and suchforth. No, this is just the sort of ridiculousness that leaves you laughing while also scratching your head, wondering how it is that God brought you to Point B from Point A when none of the signs seemed to point in this direction.

Take work and life at La Obra, for example. I am a 22 year old Texan, well-educated in the liberal arts, graduate of a private university, headed to seminary, hoping to continue on in biblical studies toward a Ph.D. (maybe even from an Ivy League, if they´ll have me), and I spend half of my work time operating a see-saw, imitating an ape, and breaking up the occasional fight between testy 8 year olds. It is gloriously nonsensical - an academic by nature finding ways to do the least academic things possible, and I LOVE it.

I love how nothing I learned in class has prepared me for working with these kids. There´s not one complex theological doctrine, not one historical reality, that´s taught me how to do this. Not even all my years of Spanish class helped me feel ready. I´ve never sat in a classroom and heard how to calm down two angry 2nd graders who want to tear into each other over a soccer ball, or how to smile at all of them when they come in after school, or how to to tell when this one´s had a bad day (or week or month or year or life) and when that one´s brimming over with excitement and happiness.

I remember, a year or two ago, talking in class about the passage in the Gospels where Jesus tells the disciples that they must become like little children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The conversation quickly turned to power dimensions and political realities, the radicalness of the Kingdom of God´s ways in the face of the Kingdom of Caesar. This conversation is worthwhile, and it is one that should be had, and I daresay one that should lead to action. However, I can´t help but wonder if there´s not some even simpler truth in it. Maybe what God wants, what God would really have us do, is take delight in the simple things that have been created here for us - a beautiful sunny day, the ability to interact with other people, a simple meal at the end of the afternoon. Maybe what God wants is for us to learn how to be content sometimes with the good surface rather than always dig for hidden, often dismal, meaning. Maybe what God wants is the sort of honesty that punches a friend over a soccer ball, then feels genuinely sorry about it, apologizes, and goes back to playing - all within the space of five minutes. Maybe that´s what becoming like a little child is like.

The other side of the story

In one of my previous entries, I talked about how beautiful Montevideo is - the beaches, the palm trees, and so on. And, it´s true. Montevideo, or at least parts of it, are glorious. However, that´s only half of the story.

After the economic crisis of 2001-2002, roughly 1/3 of Uruguayans were living below the poverty line. Economic recovery over the past few years has slimmed that number to about 1/4, but that´s still a huge segment of the national population. La Obra, where I work, is in one of the neighborhoods which reflects this economic reality. I live on the edge of the downtown area; La Obra is another 30-40 minutes on the bus past me. It´s a different world from Las Ramblas and Plaza Independencia out there. The European charm of the city center is far from here, as are many basic public services. It is a cash-poor neighborhood where people struggle to get by, and it´s marked by many of the problems that (sadly) we tend to identify with poverty - domestic violence, unsanitary living conditions, low levels of general education.

Some of the problems are logistical - take education, for example. It is an enormous challenge for a young person in the barrio to get their high school education, even though school itself is free. What isn´t free, however, is transportation to the nearest liceo, which is on my way out to the barrio, some 25-30 minutes from La Obra. That bus ride costs money that a lot of people simply can´t spare. The city, also, has more-or-less decided that "those people" in the barrio are just going to live in the squalor of the poor anyway, so markedly less effort has been made to promote recycling, and there are fewer public trash receptacles.

However, some of the issues are spiritual, and that´s where La Obra comes in. La Obra´s programs help provide support for students trying to succeed in their schooling, a safe, welcoming place for young people and kids where they can learn life and job skills and be guaranteed at least one nutritious (and tasty) hot meal a day, and where women in the community can come and be supported in the struggles they face in their homes and in society.

There is a lot of darkness in the barrios of Montevideo, but there are lights in the midst of that darkness, piercing through the haze to provide answers to questions, love instead of hate, and peace in the midst of turmoil. It´s not easy, but it has to be done if these two cities of Montevideo - the beauty and the mess - are to become one community.

Franklin´s Question of the Month!

So, back in the office in Chicago, there´s this guy named Franklin Ishida. He´s pretty cool, and for lack of a better title, I´ve labeled him "Monthly Newletter Guy" in my head. Every month, he sends us a question to ponder for your reading pleasure in our newsletters. So, without further ado, I bring you September´s Question of the Month Entry!

It probably won´t surprise any of you who know me that I did not get off the plane in Buenos Aires without baggage other than just my suitcase, backpack, and guitar. I also brought with me ideas and expectations, hopes and fears, and a certain sense of doubt and uneasiness. Moving to Ghana for a semester was difficult; it took me an awfully long way from home and left me a white American in black West Africa. However, I had well-defined purpose and structure - I went to class (well, kinda), and when time allowed, I traveled to lots of incredible destinations.

Here, however, I really didn´t know what I was getting into. This was partially furthered along by my last-minute placement change; I at least had a vague notion of what would be going on in Bariloche. Montevideo, however, was a totally new creature, one more unknown in a sea of unknowns. It really wasn´t until the day before I left to come here that I figured out where´d I´d be working, and it wasn´t until this past week that I got a schedule nailed down.

That´s not the way I normally roll with things. I like plans, schedules, and general order. I would make a GREAT Swiss citizen in that regard. However, that´s not the lot that I got handed this time around, and that´s OK. It´s a chance to grow, and that growth has already started. For better or worse, my schedule has a lot of breathing space in it. That´s been another concern of mine - how do I fill up the chilly Uruguayan nights and my two days off while still living simply and within my stipend? Some things just fell into my lap - the Waldensian church choir on Tuesdays and the Waldensian church´s young people´s gatherings on Thursdays. (Note: Pastora Wilma´s husband is the pastor at the Waldensian church, hence my being involved with their activities, too). Other things, too, are predictable for me - lots of reading, cooking dinner for myself whenever I can. Then, there are the surprises - playing guitar every day, playing chess with Martín, the philosophy student who lives in the church with us.

I feel a bit like I´m on Mount Moriah sometimes, desperately hoping that God will provide something for me before it´s too late. And, just when I start to think that maybe the sort of existential crises that are bred by boredom aren´t that scary, there´s a ram kicking about in the bushes. It was probably there all along, but I had to learn to how to see it first, to have open eyes to the table that God has set for me, and for all of us, in this world.

Now that I´ve sounded mopey, it´s worth saying that these thoughts, and the sense of uneasy restlessness that comes with them, are not an everyday thing, and they get weaker as my time begins to go on. I think the most defining moment of my time here so far came on my first Friday here. Every year, the neighborhood that´s home to La Obra holds an afternoon-long street fair for the kids of the neighborhood; every school and after-school program participates and makes games for the kids to play, there´s music, the little store on the block does great business, and in general, everyone has a blast. This year, the fair fell on a particularly warm day, the beginning of the little heat wave they just had here. It was a glorious day to be outside, but a warm one. I stood down at La Obra´s little game section for a while, and eventually decided to go get a bottle of water and sit in the shade for a while. As I was sitting on the sidewalk by the store, watching literal hundreds of kids go by, some laughing, some talking, all of them enjoying, I saw a few of our kids from La Obra walk past. They were clearly having a great time and, South American pop music blaring in the background, I had an epiphany. I realized that I was in the right place at the right time, that nobody else could be sitting on the sidewalk, drinking water, watching the kids from La Obra playing games and dancing in the street, but me; not because I´m something special in and of myself, but because it´s what God called me to do. Here´s hoping that moment is a sign for the year, a hope and a promise to cling to when maybe the days aren´t so sunny and filled with laughter.